


Its fruit is sweet

by sodiumflare



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Food Porn, Gen, Istanbul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 04:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3596568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodiumflare/pseuds/sodiumflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." - Özkul Çobanoğlu </p>
<p>Red has business in İstanbul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Its fruit is sweet

Ertuğrul, Red's driver when he is in Istanbul, may be insane. It's impossible to say. The SUV careens through traffic, or with the traffic, or around the traffic; it's a bit like white-water rafting, maybe, or surfing: the vehicle is part of all the other vehicles, all going somewhere. They are all going somewhere. Red is going to a meeting. Several meetings.

Ertuğrul stops, gestures out a window, hollers half in Turkish and half in something else. Armenian, perhaps. A girl runs over, midye dolması rattling wetly on a paper plate. She extends the plate to the SUV, like a benediction, like a gift. Dembe extends a handful of lira; her father calls from his place on the sidewalk. She turns back to the car; she won't take the money. The mussels are divied up between the three of them. They're refreshing; they taste like the sea, and spices, and something like a woman. He tastes them still the rest of the day.

Later, Red sits with Hyatt. His investments in the country are doing well. There have been some problems in the north - a hospital fire, a truck intercepted. Hyatt suspects some old enemies from the Syria work. It's nothing that can't be dealt with. But still, an enemy can only be allowed to pester for so long. Hyatt smiles, tucks her phone under her ear. Her hair falls forward like a curtain in front of her eyes. She is smiling as she gives the order. She knows a man in Kars, she says. It will be dealt with.

Dembe is no longer allowed to pick lunch locations in Istanbul because he will always choose Palestinian food, and Ahmet's mother will never let any of them hear the end of it if they eat any falafel that is not hers. Her sons, she calls them. She kisses Red on the cheek when he is in her kitchen in Rafah. Her baba ganoush is creamy, studded with walnuts, and she is the best bombmaker in the region: a dear friend. There are many reasons to keep her happy.

So Ertuğrul is responsible for lunch. He takes them to a tiny cafe at the far end of İstiklâl Caddesi; they bring their trays of kuru fasulye to the cramped, creaking upstairs. Ertuğrul talks logistics. A shipment of hash will find its way into Bulgaria tomorrow. Maurice, who will receive it, is young but reliable, Ertuğrul says. At any rate, Ertuğrul knows his brother. The cafe owner brings up rakı, a bucket of ice, tall glasses. They toast to prosperity, to İstanbullu, to trade routes across continents. A plate of cherries appears next to the rakı. The cafe owner says he has a daughter. Very beautiful, he says. Makes the best Türk kahvesi - better than his wife's, not that he'd say anything! She served six years in the military! He eyes Red over the edge of his glass.

Bless her, Luli calls, and they politely make their escape.

They pick her up in Beşiktaş. She slides into the back seat, cradling her iPhone and a half-eaten doner. Ertuğrul's driving is arguably better with two glasses of rakı in him than without it. Ertuğrul presses inland. The sky becomes slivers of sharp blue between buildings. The apartments here are all different colors - corals, lush greens, lapis; a box of crayons festooned with satellite dishes. A struggling pomegranate sapling in a courtyard, bowed over under the weight of a single fruit the size of an ostrich egg. Luli calls the building they are driving to "the creamsicle," with its white and tangerine tile. Someone has been stealing money from Red. The man responsible, Luli says, lives here: Mehmet.

Red says, you're sure?

Luli is always sure. That, and her exquisite timing, are two of her best traits.

It's enough money to warrant personal attention. Dembe walks Mehmet out onto the balcony of the creamsicle.

Çok üzgünüz, Red says to the Mehmet's wife and mother, frozen over the tavla tiles in the kitchen. Gereklidir. His Turkish vocabulary is limited, but he is well-practiced on those words. He knows them in most languages. It's only polite: courtesy is, in the end, good business.

On the balcony, Luli presides over the discussion. She rattles off routing numbers, figures in euro and yen. The man pales, urinates. Red sighs. Dembe shoots the man next to a hanging pot of geraniums. Sardunia, in Turkish. He's not sure how he knows that. Ertuğrul is talking in the kitchen, to the wife and mother. They will will be taken care of, Ertuğrul says. It's not their fault Mehmet was an idiot. Ne ekersen onu biçersin, Ertuğrul says.

Take me to the water, Red says when they are done, and Ertuğrul drives him to Ortaköy. They sit in traffic for some time close to the coast. It's been a long day, and Red is tired. He's always tired; he rests his temple against the window. It's cool. He once drank a cup of tea under an awning in a rainstorm in a cafe at the top of a hill in this city. He can't remember where. It's been so long.

At last, the traffic clears. Ertuğrul lets them out and goes to park the SUV. The swarm of vendors - jewelry, scarves, baby chicks in buckets, simit and juice - start towards them, but scatter when Dembe moves to take point. The restaurants are packed with early diners now: families leaning over tables, passing bottles of water back and forth. A boy and a girl on rollerblades terrorize pigeons in the square; the birds rise above them like smoke before settling back again. They never stay aloft for very long; the cobblestones too tempting. There will always be pigeons, and there will always be children to disturb them. Dembe and Luli drift over to the ice creamerie they favor. All vices are habits.

Red sits on a bench. There are boats tied up on the water; he exhales, and imagines breathing out the tide. He watches the seagulls swerve and dip over the Bosphorus. He saw the St. Petersburg Ballet in this city, years ago. He was married then. There's something of the dancers in the insane movement of the gulls, pinwheeling like they're compelled to, like they're born to do it. A boy tosses a chunk of stale simit in the air - it hangs, for a second, against the blue before a beak tears it away. The gulls cry above the crowd, above the water.

The boy throws another piece of bread in the air, then another, then an entire simit ring. Red doesn't see what happens to it; he has already stood turned away, facing the blood-orange sky over the water. The sun is already behind the buildings. When Luli and Dembe finish their snack, they'll need to go again. It's a good thing Ertuğrul stayed with the SUV. They need to drive to Asia. There's a lovely hotel on Bağdat Caddesi; the concierge, Cansu, will remember them. But first, other business: Red needs to see a man. A man will be dead tonight. Business needs to be kept in order. The gulls shriek.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have murdered the Turkish language here. Sincere apologies; it's been awhile.
> 
> Midye dolması - [rice-stuffed mussels](http://www.oburcan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/P1030735.jpg). A popular street food.  
> Lira - Turkish currency  
> Kars - a city in northeast Turkey, on the Armenian border. The name directly translates to 'snow.'  
> Rafah - a city and refugee camp in Gaza. I confess to making up Ahmet's mother out of whole cloth.  
> İstiklâl Caddesi - [a trendy avenue on the European side of Istanbul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0stiklal_Avenue). It gets less trendy towards the far end; the cafeteria they eat at is modeled after one I ate at there. I can't for the life of me remember the name.  
> Kuru fasulye - [a white bean stew](http://www.mehmetyasin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kuru-fasulyr.jpg). On the menu at the aforementioned cafeteria.  
> Rakı - [a Turkish anise liquor](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Toasting.JPG). Clear on its own, it turns white when water is added. Rakı and cherries are delicious together.  
> Türk kahvesi - [Turkish coffee](http://www.koleksiyon.com.tr/i/content/400_2_sufi-turk-kahvesi_4_1024.jpg)  
> Beşiktaş - [a district on the European side of the city](http://www.worldtravelimages.net/Istanbul_03_095.JPG)  
> Doner - a street food; [shaved roasted meet on bread](http://www.sharingplate.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Istanbul4-Doner-Kebab1.jpg).  
> "The creamsicle" - my best friend in Istanbul lived in an orange-and-white tiled building we called "the creamsicle". Something [like this](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3291/2938600239_38030b31e6_m.jpg).  
> Çok üzgünüz - We're very sorry.  
> Tavla - backgammon  
> Gereklidir - It is necessary.  
> Ne ekersen onu biçersin - You reap what you sow.  
> "a cafe at the top of a hill" - A passing reference to the the [Pierre Loti Cafe](http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2011/9/6/1315309171422/Pierre-Loti-Cafe-007.jpg) in Eyüp.  
> Ortaköy - [a district near the base of the first bridge on the European side](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Ortakoey_Istanbul_Bosporusbruecke_Mrz2005.jpg). The benches pictured are where Red sits. In point of interest, the ice cream place Luli and Dembe go to is a MADO. [This MADO](http://onasor.com/images/BigContentImages/2014/11/16/1/24/mado-ortakoya885b523-858f-4adf-bb10-f3de48b751ed.jpg).  
> Simit - [rings of bread studded with sesame seeds](http://www.seriouseats.com/images/potd-umami-simit.jpg). A popular street food.  
> Bağdat Caddesi - [a trendy street on the Asian side of Istanbul](http://albarontravel.com/albaron/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/bagdat-caddesi-big.png).


End file.
